If you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch you need to stop doing yourself a disservice and buy Fieldrunners from Subatomic Studios. I can’t even count the number of hours I’ve burned on this game since I bought it a week and half ago. Fieldrunners has not only become my go to lunch time entertainment but also my go to “Oh, a new episode of John & Kate Plus 8 is on” entertainment.

The game is simple to learn but it never gets dull. The game follows the same basic concept as Tower Defense. Legions of Fieldrunners are trying to make it across a field and you have four different towers at your disposal to stop them. Each time you kill a Fieldrunner you get more cash to upgrade your existing towers or build new ones. Every time I play I try to build my defenses in a new way to stop the little bastards that just never quit coming.

I think Fieldrunners is going for $4.99 in the App Store and it is definitely worth it. In fact I’m going to wrap this review up right now so that I can get to playing.

Subatomic Studios

After multiple delays and leaks, Lil Wayne’s most anticipated album of 2007, and now 2008, “Tha Carter III” drops today in record stores and Wal-Mart major retailers. If you’re a real hip-hop fan, you’ve probably followed the album’s progress over the past year, checking out the leaked songs, downloading the mix-tapes and hearing Lil Wayne guest star on more than 50 singles. Read all about it on Wikipedia.

I picked up my copy of “Tha Carter III” at my local Easy Street Records during lunch. After a quick listen this afternoon, here are my initial reactions:

• The final track listing (comes as an insert in the case) includes an additional three songs. Too bad Lil Wayne couldn’t have thrown in the “Lollipop” remix with Kanye West, as good as “Lollipop” is, it’s starting to get tired, but the remix is hot!
• “Tie My Hands” featuring Robin Thicke might be my favorite song on the album. I liked their previous collaboration, “Shooter,” and this one is even better.
• “A Milli” has to be the most annoying song of the CD. It’s fucking awful. You’ll probably listen to it once and realize that’s more than enough times.

The rest of the album has cameos from T-Pain, Babyface, Jay-Z, Fabolous and others, as well as an all-star set of producers. We’ll have a full review once we get a chance to open up the album and let it bump outside of our headphones at work.

If you have been holding off on an iPhone or iPod Touch purchase due to lack of storage today might be the day you want to jump on the bandwagon. Both models have had their storage doubled and consequently their prices increased. The 16GB iPhone will set you back $499 while the 32GB iPod Touch rings up at the exact same $499. No 3G data so this is definitely not the much rumored iPhone 2.0 it is just your basic memory boost.

Apple Store

In this time of global turmoil and one of the most hyped presidential elections in some time, the iPod Touch has come to the forefront of the current Clinton-Obama racial debate. Is this a mere “spellcheck” error or something much more sinister??? Apparently the market suspects the latter, as Apple stock has lost a massive 17% of its value since MLK Day this year.

Well shit, now I guess i have to go out and buy a stupid Zune when I upgrade next time.  Thanks a lot Apple…

Steve Jobs didn’t announce any iPorn while he was on stage this morning in his standard black turtle neck and jeans but I figured some of you might be interested in the things he did announce. I sacrificed my first of hour work to watching the Gizmodo live feed from the keynote so that I could summarize all the details here for you. You’re welcome.

Time Capsule - An external hard drive that works with Time Machine to allow you to wireless backup all of the Macs in your house to the Time Capsule. It will be available in both 500GB and 1TB flavors.

iPhone Updates - SMS to multiple people (welcome to 2002), webclips, multiple customized home screens and Maps based on cellular or Wi-Fi triangulation. All new iPhone features will be available on the iPod Touch as well.

iTunes Movie Rentals - Every major studio is on board to begin offering movie rentals via iTunes. There will be 1K films available by Feburary with standard titles going for $2.99 and new releases going for $3.99. Movies will be available 30 days after DVD release and will be availabe for viewing for 24 hours after download. The movies can be transferred between devices during that 24 hours. So you could start a movie on your PC and then finish it on your iPod during your flight.

Apple TV Take 2 - With the new Apple TV connected to your flat screen you can rent iTunes movies, rent HD movies with 5.1 surround sound, watch YouTube videos, view photos via .mac or flickr, watch video podcasts and buy iTunes music. No computer is required to run AppleTV Take 2, just the unit and an TV. The Apple TV Take 2 will also drop in price to $229.

The MacBook Air - The world’s smallest notebook weighing in at 3.0 lbs and measuring 0.76 inches at it’s thickest point to 0.16 inches at it’s thinnest point. It comes with 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo an 80GB hard drive, 2GB RAM, WiFi, bluetooth, a 13.3″ LED backlit display, a full size LED backlit keyboard and 5 hours of battery life with WiFi turned on. It will retail for $1799 and be available in two weeks.

That’s the run down. All in all some pretty cool upgrades to existing products and a confirmation that the MacBook Air does exist. Head to the Apple Store now and start blowing that tax return you are going to get next month.

Nerds across the globe are taking some time to rest up this weekend in anticipation of what many think is the best week of the year. Yes, I am talking about MacWorld. The luckiest and richest nerds will be flocking to San Francisco (probably a short trip for the majority who reside in the Bay Area). MacWorld is the annual band camp expo put on by Apple to showoff all the cool things you can’t do on a PC.

What are we to expect this year? An updated iPhone? New design of a Mac laptop? Some complicated software applications that I will have no idea how to use? Or just more things that start with “i”? An even smaller iPod?

There is a pretty good chance this is all you’ll hear about MacWorld from TastyBooze coverage, unless there is a major announcement like iPorn - which both Mitch Martin and J Diggles will probably post about, likely 5 minutes apart. So, if you want to follow the news of MacWorld or be one of the first nerds to buy whatever is announced, keep refreshing the Apple.com site.

Your husband has just had a chunk bitten our of his finger and been kicked in the balls numerous times for taking your son’s iPod away. Do you:

A)Ground your son for a month.
B)Get medical attention for your husband.
C)Punch your husband in the face several times.

I love stories that are close to home. A Kingston man was attacked by both his son and wife after taking the son’s iPod away. Apparently Dad was cruising the internet and his bastard son (figuratively not literally) wanted to use the computer to download music. When Dad left the room for a minute the little son of a bitch jumped on the computer and started downloading music. When Dad came back and found him he took the son’s iPod away for disobeying.

Sounds pretty fair to me. At this point the son attacked Dad by kicking him the balls repeatedly and biting a chunk out of his finger. When Mom stumbled upon the ruckus she jumped in and popped Dad a couple of times in the face. Why, you ask? Apparently Mom felt that Dad was to strict with the son and he shouldn’t have taken the iPod away. Mom’s roll in the fight got her a one way ticket to the Kitsap County Jail on a fourth degree assault rap.

Original Story: Seattle Times

After being hit from behind by a motorcycle Sunday evening, a 32-year-old woman was left lying near a crosswalk in Fort Collins, Colorado. Two women witnessed the accident and called the police. She had been knocked out from the hit and run and had a broken and bleeding left arm, said one of the women on the scene.

A small crowd around the lady had formed quickly in the busy neighborhood off of Boardwalk Ave. When paramedics arrived she was still unconscious. The paramedics were stretching the victim out to examine her injuries, said one witness. They took her fanny pack off and pulled it up with an iPod attached. The iPod had wires to her ears but also wires running into her shorts.

“This was a serious accident”, said one witnesses, “but when they pulled that vibrator hooked to her iPod out of her shorts you could see everyone’s faces turn red. She was lucky she was still knocked out for the ride to the hospital. I don’t think I could have survived the embarrassment.”

Apparently the “little gadget” she was using is called the OhMiBod. I gotta be honest, I never saw this one coming.

See the original article and the comments.

I work in downtown Seattle, which means aside from being raped every month to pay for parking, I’m usually witness to the front line of emerging trends for this area. Now this isn’t exactly ground breaking as far as trends go, but I finally got pushed to the limit of this ridiculousness last week after two different incidents. What am I talking about? The iPod revolution and its impact on casual friendliness in life.

What you say? Save your keystrokes because you have no audience? Well yes, probably, but I still want to get this off my chest. What I’m talking about is the new burning need for what seems like half of the downtown population to be listening to music at all times. Everywhere I go I see people with their heads down, eyes to the ground walking around with the signature white headphones in their ears, screaming out “Don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, I’m busy taking in the latest indy rock to hit the scene and being hip.” But its not just walking to and from destinations. Its in elevators, businesses, bars, and work. I recently witnessed a guy at Subway trying to order a sandwich while listening to his iPod and reading a novel (some dungeons and dragons type book no doubt). Are you f-ing joking me? You can’t take those little bastards out of your ears for 2 minutes to help expedite the order of my delicious Spicy Italian? The final straw was last week when a 50+ year old man, in a business suit, passed by nearly running into me, yes, while listening to his treasured iPod. You’re 50!! It is not cool to be acting this way.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, really its not. But seriously, when did we make the transition of having to listen to music at any chance possible? What did these people do before iPod’s and MP3 players? How the hell did they survive in a world where the only sounds were passing buses and casual “good morning’s” from their fellow mankind. What I see out on those streets is reminiscent of Hong Kong or New York (thousands of people running around with absolutely no recognition or care for people around them). And finally, its just another sign of Steve Jobs and his turtle neck wearing cronies influencing American culture in a negative way. Alright, that might be a stretch, but seriously, when it was just Rio and Sandisk MP3 players did we see this wave of hipsters wearing white ear buds? I rest my case. And for the record, yes I own an iPod.